If I be waspish, best beware my sting
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: Mary loses her temper and cedes her position.


"Enough! _Gott verdammt Sie alle in die_ _Hölle_! This is a hospital, not a schoolyard for boys to bully each other!" Mary exclaimed. She could not recognize the voice that came from her throat; she had never used that tone before, not a shout but it had in it the ferocity of a lion, the bear's growl, the sharp cry of an eagle as it dove towards its prey. It was the voice of a chimera, a pagan creature that had no place in the breast of a good Christian woman. And yet, here she stood in her drab but demure dress, her pinafore neatly pinned, hair braided, supposedly the point of calm they would all organize around, and she has resorted to such a tone and such obscenity. It had accomplished part of its desired task as the ward was now hushed, only the heavy breath of Private Mather soughing in his failing lungs could be heard.

The quiet lasted for a moment, the space between one breath and another, before the two soldiers Mary had only just stepped between began moving as if to leap again upon each other. She wasn't even sure what they had begun fighting about—one had a smaller portion of the meager stew she'd been able to prepare? Or had the other spilled water on a letter from home? The ward had been difficult lately, men had lingered, too ill to discharge or even send home, bored and fractious. She had tried to arrange regular times for them to be read aloud to, either by herself or one of the nuns, and Chaplain Hopkins was making even greater efforts to sit with the more troubled boys. One day, she had even begged Dr. Summers to play his violin for a quarter-hour and she had been rewarded with a few peaceful hours. Corporal Gregory had even smiled, an eerie expression like a gargoyle given his lacerated face and mouthful of broken teeth.

But now, even her initial outburst had not been enough to quell the agitation and jealousy that had roiled the ward's tranquility. She took a deep breath and searched herself for something to say, some gesture to arrest the imminent battle between Ohio and New York. She thought of her minister at home in his white church, how the sun streamed in the windows as he invoked God's holy peace, of her mother settling her children's passionate disputes with her gentle words softening the steel. And then New York feinted and went to grab Ohio, grazing Mary's arm and she heard herself again.

"Jesus Christ! Do you mean to murder each other before my eyes? Robinson, if you do any damage to Bennett, after Dr. Foster spend four hours sewing him up—he didn't even sleep that night! I'll not have it! If you two are well enough to turn this hospital into a brawl, you're well enough to leave and I'll discharge you myself if the doctor won't! Now, either return to your beds or gather your gear and go, this is a disgrace!"

She felt the color in her face and thought she must be trembling but her feet were steady and her hands were clasped lightly. She saw Chaplain Hopkins regarding her with a look of awe and realized that Nurse Hastings had come onto the ward just as the fight had begun and had been present the whole time. She paused before glancing at Anne Hastings and saw, to her surprise, only a look of approval, as if she had finally reached the standard Anne set with her own utter failure of self-control. She turned to leave the room. As she walked out, she stopped by the bed where Captain Howe lay. He was very weak and his dressings had begun to stink. She thought he would hardly last the night, such a kind man with grey eyes like her father had had, and she felt shame that she would have disturbed him so. She came very close, so he might hear her.

"Captain Howe, I am dreadfully sorry for that scene. I hate to think of how it must have distressed you, now when you need your rest so much," she said. He was very pale and she thought she must send a nun to sit with him. It would not be long.

"Oh, Nurse Mary, don't fret. I've been through Second Manassas and Antietam, this was nothing to me, but a pleasure to see those two mugginses have their row finished suchaway. It was the best thing I'd heard in some time. It's a crying shame you had to do it, but don't worry yourself over it," he replied. His voice was low, etched by pain, but she saw the smile he drew from within himself for her and touched his hand lightly. He might not last the hour and she thought he knew it.

"God bless you, Captain Howe. I'll send Sister Catherine to sit by you, she has a gentle way about her." He accepted this with a look, then closed his eyes. She gestured to Sister Catherine as she walked from the room and sent her over to sit by the dying man. As she walked down the hallway, seeking the solitude of the officers' dining room, Emma hurried over to her but only pressed a fresh linen handkerchief in her hand and gave her a little encouraging smile, before returning to the ward she had just left. Mary was uninterrupted as she approached the room with its mahogany doors and she was relieved to find it empty as she expected.

She sat there a half-hour, perhaps longer, before Jed came into the room without knocking. She hadn't expected any announcement, it wasn't his way and the officers came and went throughout the hospital without a by-your-leave in any case. She had chosen to sit near a table and had even taken down some foolscap and a pen and ink, but she had not been able to write a word. Jed came directly to where she sat and took the straight-backed chair to her right. His blue cravat was carefully knotted and his linen was fresh. She waited for him to begin. She had said enough today.

"Well then, it seems you've had quite a day, Nurse Mary, and it's only just afternoon. It was suggested to me the Head Nurse might like a word with the Executive Officer, so here I am," he said. She recognized his amused tone but it lacked the critical edge she remembered from shortly after she arrived.

"I apologize, Dr. Foster, I should have completed my resignation by now. If you'll only give me a few minutes, I can write it out for you and then start making arrangements. I'll write to Miss Dix myself, of course," she replied. The pen would feel heavy in her hand and the ink might splatter, but she would complete the task.

"What do you mean? Your resignation? The chaplain just said you'd had a trying morning and I ought to look in on you and Matron said you'd had to stop those two hooligans from disrupting the whole ward. Even your nemesis, Nurse Hastings only said she finally saw why you'd been made the Head Nurse though it was about time, I think that was how she put it. There was a lot of her regular discursion about the Crimea, but that was the meat of it," he said. He was looking at her with such concern and it seemed the rest of the staff, even, bafflingly, Nurse Hastings, was prepared to conceal what she had done. It was kindly meant of course, but she must own up.

"Then none of them told you the truth, how I shouted at the men, and swore and threatened them," she said. It was a sunny afternoon and the sky was cloudless in the rectangles cut by the large windows. She might have been discussing the inventory, the need for greater supplies of quinine, or even what she thought of _Adam Bede_ , which Jed had lent her "expressly so I might hear your opinion afterward, it's maddening to only talk about medicine and Hale's latest fiasco."

"I gather I should hear your confession, then. Please note that I haven't a collar, so no absolution will be forthcoming," he said lightly. She felt the disappointment in herself weighing her in her hips, her legs heavy, as if she were a dryad, trapped in her tree. He saw his jest had not relieved her. "Oh, Mary, just tell me then and we'll make an end to it."

"It was Robinson and Bennett today, but the larger ward has been full of troubles all week. The men are frustrated, they're slow to heal, I know that, but they have been yelling and sniping at each other. The sickest ones can't get any rest. And then, there have been fights breaking out, squabbles at first, but it's started to become dangerous. Albert Dawson's nose was nearly broken on Wednesday. I saw Robinson trying to punch Bennett, it could have torn his wounds wide open, I couldn't stand it. So, I shouted and cursed at them, to make them stop," she admitted, her voice tight.

"Did it work?" he asked simply.

"Well, yes, for a moment. But I shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have said what I did," she replied.

"No one told me you had been using inappropriate language, Mary," he said.

"I'm not sure they knew, I was speaking German then," she replied. He started to laugh, then quickly swallowed it.

"And the threats? What did you say?" Jed inquired. He was making an effort to keep his face bland.

"I told them if they were well enough to fight, I'd make sure they were discharged, even if you and Dr. Summers would not," Mary said. She knew this was the most serious act, the reason her behavior could not be excused so easily. She had invoked insubordination and deceit and misuse of her position.

"And how did you plan to do that?" he said. He crossed his legs and rested his arm on the table, seeking a more comfortable position. The chair was unlikely to yield one.

"I thought I would forge your signature if I had to. That is, I'm not sure I might ever have brought myself to actually do it, but I could, it wouldn't be difficult for me," she said. She had proven skilled at the drawing lessons her academy provided and had a good eye as a copyist; reproducing Jed's copperplate hand, the firm loops of the J, the slash at the F would have been nothing to her. The violation of doing it, that would have eaten at her like a cancer.

"You would have forged? You, a forger? You never—for heaven's sake! And that, that is why you are sitting here prepared to resign and leave this whole mess for me to manage?" Jed exclaimed. Why wasn't he more angry and offended? His entire outlook suggested disbelief, a mild dismay at most.

"But, Jed, it would have been criminal! And I did not conduct myself like a lady, like a Head Nurse ought to," she said.

"I'm not sure which you think is worse," he smiled ruefully. "I see you are prepared to resign over a hypothetical conducted in the subjunctive and swearing in a language no one here speaks except for me, Hale, execrably of course, and the infrequent soldier, who would surely have a greater repetoire of obscenity to draw on than you. No, I think not, Mary. I won't accept your resignation."

"But, my behavior, my comportment…" she began.

"Mary, I threw a scalpel at Hale yesterday during the third amputation," Jed interrupted.

"I know, I was there," she said flatly. It had arced through the air and merely glanced the thick canvas of Hale's apron before it struck the floor. It had been too worn and tarnished to gleam in the sunlight and, she had noted, it had not a hint of blood on it.

"Well, I nearly got him this time, though I can't say I'm entirely sorry I missed. As you are also aware, that makes the fourth time in the past two weeks," he said.

"Yes, well, you haven't listened to me or Summers, so I don't know what will stop you other than a shortage of scalpels," she replied.

"Summers is half-asleep during his surgeries. Matron didn't order enough fresh linen from the laundry and Hastings bandaged the wrong boy yesterday afternoon. My point is, you are not expected to be a saint or an angel. I daresay the men can stand being shouted at by the same nurse who sits up with them all night and brings their medicine and makes sure they have enough to eat- they can certainly survive your well-deserved wrath and you mustn't suffer so over losing your temper," he said, his tone getting more and more gentle. He moved a little and dragged his chair closer to hers, pushed the foolscap aside on the table.

"I never heard my mother raise her voice in anger, in my whole life," Mary said.

"Well, she didn't run a hospital during a war, now, did she? And even if she didn't, there's no commandment you're breaking by getting angry. I couldn't even agree it was a sin, not if you were protecting all my hard work on Bennett's gut," he replied.

"I can't help but think it was wrong. Why, to think that was what Nurse Hastings approved of, after all my efforts," she said.

"I can understand why it give you pause to finally receive approbation from Hastings, but even she may be right occasionally. It's refreshing, really, she's so convinced she's right so much of the time and with so little to support her position," he remarked.

"She is a very fine nurse, you know that," Mary felt obliged to say. Anne's experience and skills were unquestionable. Her insight and judgment were… not. Even at her most generous, Mary could not find explanations for half of Anne's decisions.

"I see I have my Mary back now, ready to argue with me. You really mustn't suffer so over this. I think you did more good than you know. I walked that ward before I came to you and it was quiet and serene as a convent. They all lay in their beds with hardly a moan. How the sisters were smiling! And poor Captain Howe seems to have taken a turn for the better, inexplicably. I thought surely he'd not last the night but his color is better and his pulse is steadier. He told me you were a Valkyrie today. He must mean Eir, and not Hildr." Mary looked at him blankly. "Eir was the Valkyrie of healing and Hildr means 'battle.' I see we have something else to discuss later, if we exhaust _Adam Bede_ ," he finished.

"I think you are too kind to me," she said as they both rose. She was staying and there was work to be done. She liked how the sun glinted off the brass buttons of his opened coat, gleamed on the silk thread of his vest as he walked beside her.

"And I think you are too kind to everyone, except yourself. This hospital would not run without you, Mary, I could not bear it if you weren't here," he said. His voice had gotten lower, there was an ache there and she felt it in her own throat when she saw how he looked at her. He had not held her responsible for her conditional statement before, so she allowed herself to wish—if he were not married, if he could take her into his arms and hold her and not let her go, if she could allow herself say all her heart kept secret? He was looking at her with such a soft desire, the emotion he worked to hide every day on the wards and even when they spoke of administration and philosophy and politics. There was so little she could say to him and leave their honor intact as their affection.

"I have no plans to leave. I'll make amends to the boys as I make my rounds and perhaps you could stop throwing the instruments at Dr. Hale. Or at least, not the surgical ones. They are so dear. I can arrange a set of spoons if you must exercise your arm with your temper," she said. He let out a great laugh at that and then, before she could even anticipate it, he kissed her squarely on the cheek, the touch of his lips brief but incontrovertible. Her left hand flew to the spot and he smiled like a boy.

"It didn't leave a mark, Mary. Shall we make afternoon rounds now?" he said.

She only nodded. He was right about so many things, but not everything. She would be able to trace the mark of his mouth on her as easily as she could have forged his name; it would cause a different sort of pain though, one she welcomed.


End file.
